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A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - Section One - Division E - Motion on the Physical and Astral Planes |
b. Touch. In taking up the subject of the second
sense, that of touch, we must note that this sense is pre-eminently the sense of
very great importance in this, the second, solar system - a system of astral-buddhic
consciousness. 81 Each of these senses, after having reached a certain point,
begins to synthesize with the others in such a way that it is almost impossible to know
where one begins and the other ends. Touch is that innate recognition of contact
through the exercise of manas or mind in a threefold manner:
Each of the five senses, when coupled with manas, develops within the subject a concept embodying the past, the present and the future. Therefore when a man is very highly evolved, has transcended time (as known in the three worlds), and can therefore look at the three lower planes from the standpoint of the Eternal Now, he has superseded the senses by full active consciousness. He knows, and needs not the senses to guide him any longer to knowledge. But in time, and in the three worlds, each sense on each plane is employed to convey to the Thinker some aspect of the not-self, and by the aid [194] of mind, the Thinker can then adjust his relationship thereto.
In all these definitions it is necessary to bear in mind that the whole object of the senses is to reveal the not-self, and to enable the Self therefore, to differentiate between the real and the unreal. 82 [195] In the evolution of the senses, hearing is the first vague something which calls the attention of the apparently blind self
But all that is grasped by the dormant consciousness (by means of this one sense of hearing) is the fact of something extraneous to itself, and of the direction in which that something lies. This apprehension, in course of time, calls into being another sense, that of touch. The Law of Attraction works, the consciousness moves slowly outwards towards that which is heard; and when contact is made with the not-self it is called touch. This touch conveys other ideas to the groping consciousness, ideas of size, of external texture, and of surface differences; the concept of the Thinker is thus slowly enlarged. He can hear and feel, but as yet knows not enough to correlate nor name. When he succeeds in naming, he has made a big stride forward. We might note here, therefore, that the earliest cosmic symbols are applicable to the senses as well as elsewhere:
81 Astral-buddhic consciousness is the term applied to the basic consciousness in our solar system. It is characterized by emotion, by feeling, sensation, which have eventually to be transmuted into intuition, spiritual perception and unity. 82 Sensations aroused by sense objects are experienced by means of the outer instruments of the Lord of the Body or senses (Indriya) which are the pathways through which the Jiva receives worldly experience. These are ten in number, and are of two classes:
The organs of sensation are the reactive response which the Self makes to sensation. The organs of action are those through which effect is given to the Jiva's desires.
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